Don’t Kid Yourself

I heard a Rangers’ fan today say that what is currently happening to the Devils (utter destruction) would not have happened if the Rangers were in the Cup. That ignores the brutal truth that the Devils are merely the latest victim of the hottest team in hockey.

Giants’ fans should recognize what the Kings are doing because their team did it five months ago. LA struggled to get into the playoffs, but once they made it they dominated. They swept through the top two seeds in the West before needing one extra game to beat the #3 seed. If they win tomorrow, they will have run through the Stanley Cup playoffs in 17 games or three less than the Rangers played in three rounds! Has a team ever gone 16-1 in the playoffs before? I can’t think of one off the top of my head, can you? The closest thing I can think of is that Bulls team that went 72-10 in the regular season. They lost three games in the playoffs. The 1998 Yankees lost only two, but baseball isn’t as physically demanding as hockey or basketball, so I don’t think it is equivalent.

And the Bulls and Yankees were teams that had dominated the regular season, something the Kings clearly did not do. Probably the closest parallel would be the 1987-88 Oilers who went 16-2, but they were the #2 seed in the West that year, had won Cups before and had guys like Gretzky, Messier, Kuri and Anderson playing for them. Maybe one day names like Quick, Kopitar and Brown will be as familiar to us, but for now this is one amazing run.